Junior Open Wheel Talent

What Was Good…

This was a busy weekend for those following karting and junior formula racing.  As I stated last week, you can find 1,356,959 race reports out there so rather than publish another one and add to that number, I thought I’d recap a few things here using bullets.

CKI- New Castle Motorsports Park

• Arie Ouimet (KF2) and Neil Alberico (TaG-Sr.) both swept the senior classes over the weekend in the CKI WSK North American Series.
• It was nice to see junior formula pilots Joel Miller and Conor Daly return to the karting ranks for the weekend.

F2000 Championship- Virginia International Raceway

• Victor Carbone — who I named the 2009 F2000 Championship Unsung Hero — started the 2010 season off with a bang by claiming his first career victory.
• Daniel Erickson was incredibly fast this weekend claiming the pole position in both qualifying sessions.  It was his first time in a F2000 Championship car.  With a little luck, he would have won at least one race this weekend as well.  Unfortunately, he was plagued by some mechanical issues while leading Sunday’s race.
• Keith McCrone earned the hard charger award in Race-1 by driving from 30th to 17th in 14 laps.
• The 2007 F2000 Champion Cole Morgan put in a solid drive to claim the victory in Race-2.
• Craig Clawson earned the hard charger award in Race-2 by improving 10 spots (28th to 18th) in 14 laps.

F3 Euro Series- Paul Ricard

• Edoardo Mortara started off the year right where most expected him too; at the front.  He finished the race just ahead of his Signature teammate Marco Wittmann – who set the fastest lap of the race.
• Adrian Quaife-Hobbs improved the most positions.  He started 11th and finished 6th; improving 5 spots in 19 laps.
• Alexander Sims won Race 2 by over 7-seconds after finishing 3rd in Race 1.
• Daniel Juncadella set the fastest lap of the race in Sunday’s event and earned his first career pole position for Race 1.

Indy Lights- Barber Motorsports Park

• J.K. Vernay continued his dominance this weekend at Barber Motorsports Park.  He started the season out by dominating the field on a rain-soaked street course (St. Petersburg) and then followed that up with another impressive win yesterday over Charlie Kimball and Sebastian Saavedra.
• In addition to his race winnings, Vernay also won $5,000 for the Firestone back-to-back win bonus.
• Nic LeDuc earned the hard charger award for finishing 11th after starting the race 17th.
• I think the IRL did a great job scheduling the Indy Lights race just prior to the IndyCar race.  The crowd was excellent, perhaps one of the biggest in recent memory for a Indy Lights road course event.
• There were quite a few complaints about passing zones, but I didn’t have any issues with the race action.  Drivers were creating passing opportunities and the race craft was excellent.  The most notable driving occurred mid-pack in a heated battle between James Winslow, Dan Clarke, Gustavo Yacaman, Junior Strous, Philip Major and Niall Quinn. All the drivers involved did a great job being aggressive in the corners without taking each other out.
• The Barber Motorsports Park track is incredible – the elevation changes and blind corners make it one of my favorites in North America.
• The biggest issue I had with the IndyCar.com coverage this weekend was the lack of onboard footage.  For example, Pippa Mann put together a great lap description prior to the race but we had no visual reference to accompany it.  Thankfully, I’m quite familiar with the course but not everyone is.
• Note to those in charge of Indy Lights coverage— You Need More Onboard Footage.  This is especially important for a circuit like Barber Motorsports Park.